The Voice of the Community Since 1909, Serving Moorcroft and Pine Haven, Wyoming
The Voice of the Community Since 1909, Serving Moorcroft and Pine Haven, Wyoming
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Moorcroft’s Parent Action Committee (PAC) started nearly 13 years ago with teachers and parents joining forces in planning, organizing and facilitating activities beyond the classroom. However, with only two remaining members, the committee is looking at disbanding. This possibility impacts the entire community as PAC is responsible for many of the events folks have become accustomed to enjoying with their kids. There have been many activities over the years, but the most recognized are Frozen Food and T-Shirt sales, providing merchandise f...
Freedom Holdings’ Greg Cottrell, one of the developers and owners of C-Bar Estates in Pine Haven, and the company’s engineer, Chris Lovas, have hired KO Construction to finish the work of burying the open trenches and cleaning the site after the council felt that the former contractor had abandoned the job in a dangerous state. Local resident and owner of KO, Kelly Lang, assured the mayor that bringing the site to the legally required safety standard and cleaning up the site is his “first priority”. As an added measure, Pine Haven’s Public Wo...
Pine Haven has been struggling for a number of months to work with more than 30 homeowners in an effort to bring their properties up to the codes related to the town’s nuisance ordinance. These violations include abandoned vehicles, 20-32; accumulation of solid waste, 20-33; and not mowing, 20-35. The problem was recently discussed at a council workshop and a list was established of those who would not keep their property clean of garbage and overgrowth. After conferring with Pine Haven’s attorney, Mayor Karla Brandenburg explained the nex...
Moorcroft Chief of Police Bill Bryant warns business owners of a cash scam that recently hit town. Two local businesses were essentially robbed by deception, according to the chief. The scam starts with the culprit bringing in a large bill – a $100 or $50, for example – and ask the clerk to break it into smaller denominations, “and they’ll keep doing that, confusing the clerk”. With fast hands and slick wording, they were able to walk out with approximately $500 more than that with which they started their con. The suspects who came through M...
Lyle Austin, owner of the 12-plex on North Little Horn, has still not complied with Moorcroft’s ordinance regarding meters to measure water to each of the apartments within the almost two years’ variance allowed by the council. Mayor Pro-tem Dale Petersen reiterated the deal formerly made with Austin at last week’s meeting: “He was supposed to come back with a plan and he had to have it accomplished a certain number of days after the plan.” Austin has not as yet moved forward, according to Public Works Director Cory Allison. “He’s bee...
Individuals have been casting construction debris into Pine Haven's slash pile again, according to Fire Chief TJ Gideon. "So, legally, we can't burn – we have to remove it at the city's expense," he says. This threatens the benefit the open slash pile offers to all residents who are currently taking advantage of dumping their yard waste here free of check or charge. To curtail the problem, a camera has recently been fitted to catch the culprits in the act, but a tree on the south side of the m...
Passersby may have noticed the absence of the Swagger Construction crews onsite at the C-Bar Estates development for the last three weeks, leaving the remaining open areas to tap into sewer lines in the roadway unprotected and unfinished. At last week’s workshop, Pine Haven’s council discussed with Town Attorney Pat Carpenter the lack of safety protocol followed onsite as well as continued discrepancies regarding contractual agreements between the town, DEQ and C-Bar developers Freedom Holdings. The council initiated a stop work order unt...
Keyhole State Park celebrated the last days of an eventful summer with Lanternfest Saturday. Guests enjoyed the kayaks and fishing as evening fell on the beautiful wet day. The event was organized and led by interpretive ranger Emma Jones, with her friends from other park duties putting the 40 paper lanterns together and turning on the flame free lights within before handing them over to the increasing crowd of participants as dark came over the lake shore. A few campfire songs were sung as...
Pine Haven’s council has been working on the issue of ensuring the installation of a uniform residential address system throughout the municipality for several years, including contacting homeowners who employ illegible or no house numbers. The governing body has sought the property owners’ attention to this needed addition, to no avail. “So if we don’t put numbers up there,” Mayor Karla Brandenburg summed the situation up, “it isn’t going to happen.” The purpose of the address plaques is to provide police, fire and ambulance a quick and compr...
It is one more time around for tenement owner Lyle Austin. Almost 18 months ago, the question arose of his obligation by municipal law to install water meters for each of the 12 rental units in his building on North Little Horn Avenue. At the time, council was seeking improvement of the investment fee structure, according to Mayor Ben Glenn, “So everyone who owns or rents a lot is paying the same.” The governing body allowed Austin a month to get a timeline for completion of said project, ensuring compliance with the law as well as his fel...
Monday morning started early for Moorcroft police officer Nick Curley as he was called to a street light post in North Big Horn Avenue in front of the post office that had been struck and toppled some time during the preceding night, presumably by a vehicle. According to Public Works Director Cory Allison, the town does not keep an extra pole on hand. The last fixture they ordered cost approximately $6500 and took about five months to be delivered. This is the second such incident within the month of July; an unknown individual drove into the...
Last week, Moorcroft public works crews could be seen working along South Little Horn Avenue, sealing cracks along the cement street in their ongoing maintenance of the roadways. The product used is a premixed slurry, moved through a machine that heats it to a pourable state. “It is simple to run [and] it turned out great,” public works director Cory Allison spoke of the product when his men first used the mix at the south end of Little Horn. “There’s a lot of work to it, but… it looks real good.” He purchased more of the mix to seal all th...
After the conversation and walkthrough at the Moorcroft Town Center (MTC) with Commissioner Fred Devish regarding the possible relocation of the Moorcroft Branch Library into the building, the council is looking again at funding sources for moving Town Hall to the hill. Mayor Ben Glenn spoke to the pre-approved plan at a workshop last week: “I think we have to get refocused on that. If we’re going to expend our money and just do this, there’ve been a couple grants out there that might work, we need to make a decision to chase the grants or no...
The splash park is again on Moorcroft’s agenda. The town was recently awarded the funds to design and construct the recreational water feature and discussed with HDR Engineering’s Heath Turbiville the best option to move forward from the two he recommended at a recent workshop: design/build or Construction Management At Risk (CMAR). Mayor Ben Glenn advocates the traditional method that has served the town a long time, making HDR the practical liaison between the general contractor and council. However, in this instance, Turbiville dis...
C-Bar Estates developing company, Freedom Holdings, has run into a couple significant glitches as they move forward with the subdivision started last year, beginning with the mandatory rebuild of much of the roadway throughout due to improper compaction and, now, previously agreed-upon water taps into each lot that must be installed according to DEQ permissions must be established. After discussing the situation at length with Pine Haven's council, Greg Cottrell and Robert Chamberlin have...
Pine Haven Volunteer Fire Department’s fireworks display was a raving success this year, with Keyhole packed to capacity and people lining the highways far beyond park gates to watch the show. However, it almost did not happen. The decades-old event was challenged this year by federal agencies including the Bureau of Reclamation as they own the land on which Keyhole State Park resides and Fish and Wildlife because of the northern long-eared bat that lives in the immediate vicinity of the display. According to Mayor Karla Brandenburg, “It sta...
Moorcroft has been actively seeking grants to assist in completing the Powder River Sewer Project and, according to HDR Engineering’s Heath Turbiville, an option this year is available from the same pool of money from which the town previously applied to work on the Moorcroft Town Center (MTC). This American Rescue Plan Act account, administered by the State Loans and Investments Board, has been rejuvenated with extra funds and Turbiville told Moorcroft’s governing body recently: “In the last round, there were a lot of water and sewer proje...
The original footprint of the Moorcroft Cemetery has been losing its footing for some time and as the remaining pinned plots are sold on the southwest pie-shaped corner, the issue is coming to a head. "It's been an ongoing issue for this town for a long time," Mayor Ben Glenn brought the subject up at a recent meeting. "We've had two different engineers at our cemetery and everything's off just enough to make it a real mess. I would like us to not keep putting this in the background, though,...
More than a decade after the initial plan was devised, is the Moorcroft Branch Library moving into the MTC? Members of Moorcroft's council walked through the northeast halls of the Moorcroft Town Center (MTC) last week in anticipation of offering the rooms in that area to the Crook County Commissioners as well as the county library board for use by the Moorcroft branch. Mayor Ben Glenn shared a bit of the history of the library and the MTC: "Since this building was taken over by the town, the...
No doubt about it, this year's 58th Moorcroft Jubilee celebration jumped up a notch with events starting Thursday evening and running through Sunday afternoon. Regardless of where one looked during the weekend, there was action. According to Moorcroft Area Chamber of Commerce (MACC) volunteer and co-organizer Krissy Hinkhouse, "Attendance was up across all events again this year, from both rodeos, the volleyball and cornhole tournaments, the goat roping, parade and everything in between." Around...
Pine Haven Volunteer Fire Department again threw a great family party with thousands in attendance Saturday night. People were heard laughing with their children, friends and neighbors as they settled into a night show of bright fireworks bursting overhead, setting camp chairs around the water's edge and in pickup beds. The waters of Keyhole were alight with running lights from the many boats sitting around an open area directly beneath the airspace of the fireworks as well, all in wait for the...
A few years ago, there were rumors of a hotel and restaurant coming to Moorcroft, but then...nothing; at least, nothing obvious. In the background, though, big things were happening. D A Peterson Company LLC president Doug Peterson explains, "There were people I knew in Moorcroft, who had mentioned to us for a few years that they felt they needed a motel and a restaurant, but I felt that Moorcroft may be a little small for us. Finally, a year and a half or two years ago, I did the research and...
Moorcroft Public Works Director Cory Allison would like to remind residents of the dangers associated with putting yard waste in the municipal dumpsters. The waste can, has and will spontaneously combust in the confined space, he says. These spontaneous fires have burned trucks as well as dumpsters and can cause serious risk to the individuals who handle them. Due to this danger, garbage containers with yard waste will not be picked up. Allison noted eight households doing so last week alone....
At the recent meeting of Moorcroft's governing body, Councilman Dale Petersen spoke to a need he and others perceive for flashing lights declaring the pedestrian crosswalk across Highway 16, between the school campus and Coffee Cup Fuel Stop. During the lunch hour, many young students use the walkway in an area where drivers are often speeding up as they leave the town center and of which tourists are often unaware as they approach from the east. After previous discussions on the matter among...
The abandoned and derelict structures in Moorcroft's residential area are not only an eye sore, but a couple of them have been severely compromised by fire and are unsafe. "Like the trailer [on Goshen]," Councilman Rob Stewart shared a specific example, "it's abandoned, rodent infested, there are holes in the roof [and] the insolation is coming down – it's a hazard." Town Attorney Pat Carpenter has attempted to contact the lawyer representing the owner of this trailer house, but has not yet r...
